March 20, 2013
While the release of new generic Top Level Domains (gTLDs) is a hot topic within the domain industry; awareness is still lagging outside of it.
Domain name marketplace SEDO (an acronym for 'Search Engine for Domain Offers') surveyed hundred managers and owners of small and medium sized businesses in January and found 63 percent were totally unaware that new gTLDs will start being released this year.
17.6% said the release sounded familiar, but were unsure and just 19.7% of small to mid-sized businesses said they knew of the pending release of new gTLDs.
A whopping 94 percent said they were not planning on purchasing domain names under new extensions, even though 64% reported having purchased domain names in the past. When pushed further on the issue and asked what would persuade a decision to register a name under a new gTLD, over 32% remained adamant such a purchase simply wouldn't occur.
54% stated they would be hesitant to click on generic top level domain names ending in something other than .com, .net or .org.
More than half of respondents felt that new gTLDs will only make the Internet more confusing. This was a stand-out issue also reported in another earlier survey by Fairwinds Partners where 44% of respondents believed new gTLDs either "probably or definitely" would cause confusion among ordinary users of the Internet.
The SEDO survey also found that of a selection of extensions, '.llc' (stands for Limited Liability Company in the USA) was described as having the most potential for success, followed by '.design, '.music,' '.movie,' and '.home.'
40% of respondents believed there was no advantage or were unsure what the advantage of a new gTLD would be.
The SEDO gTLD Awareness Report Research Brief can be viewed in full here (PDF)
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